Day of the Traffords
by Romantic Twist
Summary: Colin Trafford, Tracy Fletcher, Tom Lewis and Sir Henry Larnstein visit the parallel earth where Colin once fell in love with Tracy Fletcher's counterpart Ottilie Harsham. (A sequel to the movie "Quest for Love" / John Wyndham's original short story "Random Quest")
1. Consider her Days

STORY NOTES: Accomplished science fiction author John Wyndham wrote a novel "Day of the Triffids," which has spawned at least one successful movie. He also wrote a short story called "Random Quest" in 1954. It was published in his 1961 anthology "Consider her Ways and others." The story was filmed as the 1971 movie "Quest for Love" starring Tom Bell, Joan Collins, Laurence Naismith and Denholm Elliott.

The movie left me wanting more, particularly an epilogue in which many things were explained to characters affected by them. So here is my sequel.

For clarity purposes, I will call the earth where the physicist Colin Trafford was born earth-A, and the earth where the author Colin Trafford was born earth-B.

If you haven't seen the movie or read the story, Colin's explanation to Tracy in the first few paragraphs will recap the essential plotline for you. (Consider it a spoiler though).

Colin Trafford handed the bouquet of flowers to Tracy Fletcher, who sat up in her hospital bed on earth-A. Her friend Jennifer had just whispered in her ear to explain who Colin was. The man, for reasons only known to him, had somehow incredibly known that Tracy was not just passing out frequently from exhaustion. She was in fact suffering from a heart condition. Colin had fought his way through the protection mentality of an uncooperative sneering airport official, in order to learn Tracy's address, so that he could notify her of her condition and arrange urgent medical treatment.

"How did you know I needed the operation?" asked Tracy.

"That would be hard enough for you to believe," said Colin, "Are you sure you want your friend to hear this?"

"It would give you someone else to trust," said Tracy.

"Well my best friend, a science correspondent, was ready to dismiss this as my having had a dream," said Colin, "However I can assure you that I physically felt and experienced everything I'm about to tell you. And there's no other explanation for my knowing your medical condition. Several weeks ago, I was demonstrating a particle accelerator at IPI, with a number of people present, including scientist Sir Henry Larnstein and science journalist Tom Lewis, who lost an arm in the war. The accelerator's effects were both uncontained and unpredictable, and I stood at ground zero, operating the machine. Suddenly I found myself in a different room, wearing different clothes, passed out on the floor. Little by little, I worked out that I had gone to a parallel universe, exchanging places with my counterpart. He came to this world, which I'll call earth-A, and remained in a coma for the whole time I was in the other world earth-B. There I found that my counterpart, a visually identical Colin Trafford, had become a famous author who committed adultery with a number of unattractive homewreckers, while married to your exact double named Ottilie Harsham. On earth-B, she was named Ottilie rather than Tracy, was never orphaned, and loved the unfaithful Colin Trafford. Believing I was him, she was cold and understandably unforgiving until I introduced her to Sir Henry Larnstein-B, who believed my story and helped me to convince her."

"Wouldn't it have been adultery of a sort, even stepping into your double's shoes?" asked Jennifer.

"I was so confused by all the scientific ramifications that I hadn't stopped to think of the moral ones," said Colin, "But Colin-B had already broken his marriage covenant several times. Thinking I was him, Ottilie told me she was going to divorce me for it. So she was free to leave HIM and remarry. Some churches may not recognise this, and there's debate on how to translate some of the Bible's passages on divorce. Some ministers believe that a victim divorcee is free to remarry without it constituting adultery. It makes sense to me. One night my shirt came loose, and Ottilie saw that I had no scar on my shoulder. Colin-B had a permanent scar from his schooldays. Ottilie was then fully convinced, and we had only a few weeks left. Just when I'd finally won her over, Tom Lewis-B told me that she was dying from a heart condition (like yours). I told the medical experts of earth-B about the operation that would fix it, but they'd never heard of it. Nobody had the knowledge. Although it was equally 1971 in that world, a number of developments here hadn't happened there. Kennedy was never shot. The Vietnam War had never happened. Inflation was slower, as I discovered when I paid for drinks and taxi fare. Medicine hadn't advanced as far. Ottilie died in my arms saying, 'Promise me that you'll find the other me in your world. I know I'm there.' I'm not sure what happened next. Maybe I passed out from emotional trauma. Maybe the accelerator's effects wore off. All I knew for sure is that I awoke back here on earth-A in the hospital bed, where Colin-B had slept in a coma, having been mistaken for me. Now he's presumably back on earth-B, unconcerned about the death of a wife he never cared for, and continuing his affair with the latest starlet of his plays."

"So how did you find me? I've never been called Ottilie," said Tracy.

"It wasn't easy. To make it worse, I wasted time before it occurred to me that you could have the same heart condition, in a world where it could be treated medically, but didn't know it. I had to start working through adoption records, and it lead to your colleague at the airport making things hard to follow up…." said Colin.

"Don't worry. I called him and explained what you'd done," said Jennifer, "He thinks your story was way out, but it did lead to saving Tracy's life, and he said he doesn't understand but is happy to dismiss it as a beneficial phenomenon. At any rate, he won't press any charges."

"When I passed myself off as Tracy…" said Jennifer, "I'm sorry to both of you. I thought I was keeping her safe."

"For one davastating minute or two, I thought that Ottilie's counterpart here was the baby who died in the accident I heard about during my search for Tracy, and hence that you were the surviving child, Jennifer. Then I got to the street and saw your flower delivery man arrive with the exact flowers that Ottilie had described. That's why I saw through your deception and burst in."

"I'm glad you did," said Tracy.

"I'll keep your secrets," said Jennifer.

"Could you use your accelerator to take me to the other world?" asked Tracy, "I'd really love to go there, and explore the place where it happened. And think of your friends' counterparts in that world. They should know the truth."

"I can't do that," said Colin, "When I swapped places with Colin Trafford-B, I ended up in the exact place where he was, right down to being inside the clothes he was wearing at the time I fired up the accelerator. Ottilie is dead, either buried or cremated. Even if I could guarantee a successful use of the accelerator for that purpose, you could end up underground in a coffin with no oxygen, or worse."

"Could we at least go and see the Larnstein here?" asked Tracy, "You should tell him the story you've just told us."

"I never thought of that," said Colin, "To him, the theory of time divided into two parallel worlds is still just a mathematical concept. My Tom Lewis from this world wants to meet you too, as he has a scientific curiosity."

"While yours is a romantic one?" said Tracy.

"I said my motives were selfish," said Colin, "When you're up and about from here, we'll go and see Sir Henry. You could come too, Jennifer."

"I wouldn't miss it."


	2. A Switch in Place

Colin, Tom, Jennifer and Tracy met with Sir Henry Larnstein-A, and Colin retold the fanastic story of his visit to world-B.

"Well I could explain it to your friends here mathematically, but you don't prove anything. You're a freak," said Henry.

Colin Trafford laughed.

"Those are the exact words that Sir Henry-B said to me, when I took Ottilie to see him," said Colin, "It must be the only time in the history of two earths, that someone used a scientist instead of a marriage counsellor and a lot of prayer to prevent a divorce."

"Well technically YOU weren't even married to her to begin with," said Henry.

"That's one for the church to work out," said Colin, "What I want to know, and I think what Tracy hoped to know, is whether we could improve the experiment in order to go there."

Tracy permitted herself a wry smile. It was her real reason for wanting to see Larnstein.

"Well as my counterpart said, you were playing about with a random factor and it went wild," said Sir Henry, "Remember, I saw it happen. I was there. I thought it was you that got taken to hospital. Now I know that Colin-B instantly appeared in your place, in your clothes. The trick is to build a travel chamber for your particle accelerator, complete with additional controls. We know that someone exposed to the output of the accelerator without these features added would simply swap places with his double. However, I believe that all of us could use such a travel chamber to move ourselves into earth-B, without drawing our doubles back here to earth-A in our places."

"Do you mean that we could meet our doubles there?" asked Tracy, "Except for mine, of course."

"I never saw a Jennifer over there, just Ottilie, Tom and Sir Henry. But is she right, Sir?"

"I do believe so. Won't my counterpart get a surprise to know that meeting me will prove his theory beyond a doubt. I'll help you work on the machine," said Larnstein.

It took them five months to finish it. Early in 1972, the five scientific pioneers stepped into the travel chamber, fired up the accelerator and travelled to earth-B. Using the additional directional controls, they made sure that the machine didn't end up in the wrong place. They'd built it in Colin-A's home, but did not want to arrive in Colin-B's home. Instead, they appeared in Tom-B's home.

Stepping from the machine, they looked around, and explored the place.

"It looks like he's out," said Colin.

"He'll think we're nuts, unless I'm here. We'd better wait for him to return," said Tom.

"You're right. Every time I tried to tell him the truth, he thought I was drunk, when I was here before," said Colin.

After several hours, evening set in and they heard a key turning in the lock, and saw Tom Lewis-B enter his front room.

"Who the hell are you people, and-….?"

Tom-B's eyes fell upon an exact double of himself, except that the man was missing an arm. Not only that, but he also saw an exact double of his late friend Ottilie Harsham Trafford.

"I'm the other Colin Trafford," said Colin-A, "Has the local me said much to you since we lost Ottilie? Or aren't you two talking anymore."

"Other Colin? What are you talking about?" exploded Tom-B, "All your fooling around drove her to her death."

"Come on, you know it was her heart condition that did that," said Colin-A, "And besides, here's the other you, and the other Ottilie, although she's called Tracy where we come from."

"You mean, in that?" asked Tom-B, pointing to the travel chamber which now took up most of his living room space, "It's all true! What you shouted at the party about not being on the same plane."

"Well here's the clincher," said Colin-A, taking off his shirt and walking over to Tom-B, "No scar. As I said in the bar last time I was on your world, if you hadn't pushed my counterpart onto a spiked fence at school, I'd be clocking you for all you'd said to make Ottilie doubt me. The last thing she said as she died in my arms was to find the Ottilie of my world, and here she is."

"Still alive…. Alright, I believe you. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"Understandable, with the facts you had available to you," said Tom-A, "No scar for Colin-A on my world, both arms for you on yours. I lost mine in a war that never happened for you."

Colin-A filled in the rest of the story.

At last, finally, Tom-B understood.

"So you were never an unfaithful husband, and so far never a husband at all," said Tom-B, "You've all hit upon the scientific find of the age. If this gets out-"

"It mustn't," said Sir Henry-A, "Not even to Colin-B, who's already shown his moral destitution. No, the only person we really should tell is the other me."

"You can keep that thing here for as long as you stay," said Tom-B, pointing again to the travel chamber, "I'll have no guests over until it's returned you all to your world."

Tom-B put them all up for the night, using couch cushions arranged on the floor for some, and spare mattresses for others.

Using the travel chamber, rather than merely a naked particle accelerator, they had been able to bring cash from earth-A over to earth-B. The currencies were identical, but because of the slower inflation of earth-B, the money was worth more than it had been worth on their own world. The next day they would buy more mattresses and then….

Sir Henry Larnstein-B was told that a party of six were waiting to see him. They were shown into his office, and then his staff left. He recognised Colin Trafford-A at once, and hadn't heard of Ottilie Harsham's death. So he thought Tracy was Ottilie.

"A doppleganger is the second ingredient in any experiment," quipped Sir Henry Larnstein-A, removing his trilby hat, a long wig, and a long fake beard."

"Well you really DO prove something!" said Sir Henry-B, "How did you do it? How did you get here?"

At this point, Tom Lewis-A also removed a similar disguise, so that Sir Henry-B could now see his resemblence to Tom Lewis-B.

"I'm surprised you haven't just thought of it," said Sir Henry-A, "Took me a few seconds, once they told me their problem. We built a travel chamber. The random factor was no longer random, and no longer went wild. We could build the same equipment for you here in your laboratory, and you could use it to explore our world whenever you like."

"Not the laboratory," said Sir Henry-B, "That would need too much explanation. Let's do it in the private wing of my own home."

"In the meantime, we'd better make sure nobody ever sees two Colin Traffords, or two Tom Lewises or two Henry Larnsteins in the same place at the same time," said Sir Henry-A.

"Colin Trafford here won't be a problem," said Tom-B, "We haven't spoken since Ottilie's funeral. He said he woke up from some sort of coma and found her dead beside him. I don't know what he'd make of the real story, but he won't be coming to visit me. I can still hardly believe it. You weren't just giving your marriage another try. You were discovering her for the first time. How it must have been for you, the way we treated you."

"He had just as much to deal with from me and my colleague," said Jennifer, "We thought he was a lunatic."

"I was good friends with Ottilie," said Tom-B, "It's been an honour to meet you, Tracy."

"Why don't you come with me and explore earth-A?" said Sir Henry-B, "That will leave this lot free to tour our world without arousing suspicion.

"It sounds like fun," said Tom-B.

"Great. Then my friends won't be needing these. But I will," said Colin-A, attaching Tom-A's wig and Sir Henry-A's false beard to his own facial features, "On this world, my double is a famous author. It just wouldn't do for there to be two of us known at large."


	3. Wyndham's Quest

"Another author might not have worked out how to save me," said Tracy.

"And an adulterer might not have cared," said Tom-B.

"That's another reason I don't want to meet him," said Colin-A, "It'd take some doing not to bust him one in the chest."

"Because of what you went through when you first got here? Again I'm sorry," said Tom-B.

"No, because of what Ottilie went through for most of their marriage," said Colin-A.

"Henry, are you sure you want to keep this quiet?" asked Sir Henry-A, "If we went public together on your world, we could prove your theories, get you the recognition, and then do the same on mine."

"And have the whole world wanting to push their way into those machines and go cavorting around through the dimensions?" said Sir Henry-B, "Even if it didn't upset the population equilibrium between earths, we'd have no lives to ourselves. I'd rather just enjoy it in privacy."

"I do believe you're right," said Sir Henry-A.

"Good. Then you can pass yourself off as me, and I'll do the same on your world. If you're still here when I get back with Tom, you visitors can go back to disguising yourselves. We might as well get going," said Sir Henry-B.

He handed a set of spare keys to his counterpart, who now had the run of Sir Henry-B's home and vehicle and laboratory.

He and Tom-B stepped into the 2nd travel chamber and soon vanished from sight.

"I do wonder how Colin-B's making out with Geraldine, after I snubbed her in front of Ottilie," said Colin-A.

"Their relationship was reprehensibly entered into in the first place," said Tom-A, "You didn't spoil anything good. He might cheat on her eventually too."

"Well we're not going there to find out, neither with or without that collection of hairpieces on your head," said Sir Henry-A, "But since our cash goes further on this world, we could eat well. I suppose Henry-B and Tom-B will have to watch their pennies on our world."

"They could save on transport by making short trips on the same earth in their travel chamber," said Colin-A.

Sir Henry, Tom and Jennifer set out to explore London-B and Watford-B together, mainly for scientific purposes. Although Jennifer and Tom, drawn into this adventurer initially out of concern for their friends, were now starting to enjoy eachother's company.

Colin and Tracy made their own foray into London. To Colin, Hyde Park had always seemed a romantic place best saved for a romantic moment, which he'd never found until now. Here he was, appreciating it for the first time, except that it was a different Hyde Park, identical in appearance, but situated on another earth.

"Now that all the science is out of the way for the moment, I guess we have a chance to really talk," he said.

Tracy took his hand in hers, as they continued to walk. It was overcast and lightly raining. The drops of water resting on the leaves and petals of the bushes and flowers each sparkled like miniature portals, Colin thought, reminded again of how they had arrived in that particular Hyde Park.

The rain drops pittered and pattered gently on the large umbrella above their heads.

"I wonder if we'd have ever met, if you hadn't been to this world first," said Tracy.

"We were meant to meet. It would have happened somehow. I have wondered something similar myself. What would your reaction have been, if you hadn't shared Ottilie's illness, if I'd burst in when there was nothing medically wrong with you."

"It would have taken some explaining," she said, "But I'd still have liked you. A nice guy named Jimmy, a bit of a clown, kept making passes at me for a year on the aircraft where we worked. I was waiting for someone else to come along. I just didn't know it was you. There is just one thing though."

"What?"

"Do you have to wear those silly things?"

"Don't all scientists grow them while they're too busy in their labs to shave?" said Colin in a satirical voice.

"Only because their wives are too squeamish about scissors," said Tracy, teasing, "If you'd turned up looking like that, without saving my life, I might not have responded after all."

With that, she suddenly pulled off both beard and wig and shoved them into the large pocket of her thick raincoat.

She led him to a small shelter, where he put down the umbrella.

Colin took her in his arms and kissed her. They both closed their eyes and listened to the falling rain syncopated with the beating of their own hearts.

"What sort of sick joke is this?" said a familiar voice.

Colin and Tracy opened their eyes to see that Colin-B and Geraldine had taken shelter in the same place.

"It's no joke," said Colin-A.

"I know plastic surgery has come along way, but to use it to impersonate me and my dead wife-" said Colin-B

"Like you cared!" said Colin-A gruffly, and shoved his counterpart against the wall of the shelter, "Parading this homewrecker around like a trophy and breaking Ottilie's heart over and over again!"

Colin-B swung at him, but his movements were slow and awkward.

"I guess the alcohol's taking its toll again. I heard about that before," said Colin-A, having successfully parried the blow with an arm block.

"I'm going to shout for a policeman. They do come through here on horseback," said Colin-B.

"It was YOU who said those things to me that day in the bar, not him," said Geraldine to Colin-A, "Look closely at him, Colin. It's not plastic surgery. Somehow he really is another you."

"Yes… you are, aren't you?" said Colin-B.

"And you spent weeks in a coma, while Ottilie snubbed me, came to trust me, and then died in my arms," said Colin-A, "I guess I'll have to tell you now. You spent those comatose weeks on my earth. Somehow a particle accelerator swapped us and knocked you out. I played with it again yesterday and this time I came here without sending you to my world."

He left out any mention of the travel chamber. He didn't want this other Colin to know of it or look for it, but merely to believe that any dimension hopping was completely out of his control.

"How do I know you won't send me there again?" asked Colin-B.

"Yes that would take you away from Miss Homewrecker 1971 here, wouldn't it?" said Colin-A, "Maybe someone should try that with Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy. You know, because I can trust YOU now not to tell anyone of our existence. This is Ottilie's counterpart, Tracy."

"I've heard something of you," said Tracy coldly.

"Why does she have a different name?" asked Colin-B.

"She was orphaned as a baby on my world, and raised by different people who named her Tracy," said Colin-A.

"Oh…. Well, … Geraldine and I are going to get married," said Colin-B.

"Make it last," said Colin-A.

"Actually Jack Cassidy's still married to his wife. He told Shirley Jones to stop bothering him. It made quite a story in the tabloids," said Colin-B, "Although rumour has it she's been seeing his son David after hours, since they started working on the Partridge Family.

"Cougars are better than adulterers," said Colin-A.

"I guess one world's adultery is another world's fidelity," said Tracy, "both for them in the 1950s and for us now."

"Alright. We'll pretend we never saw you," said Colin-B, "Okay with you, Geraldine?"

"I guess so," said Geraldine, "But let's get going. This is too weird, especially when you're sober."

They raised their umbrella and walked off together.

"Well, when he's sober, he'll keep it quiet, and if he does let it slip while he's drunk, they'll think it's just the juice talking. That's what they thought of me, when I almost gave things away the last time I was here," said Colin-A, "You know I once said to Ottilie, that I didn't want to know how things were with that Colin. Not long before she died, she listed all the places where they'd been happy in the early days, and said that she wanted to show them to me. Would you like to see them, or should we find our own happiness as we go?"

"Well…. Since you never actually went there with her… Besides, I'm grateful. Without her last words, you might never have found me."

For weeks, they explored all the places on Ottilie's list together, growing closer with each passing day, until the time came to meet up with Sir Henry-A, Tom-A and Jennifer again, for their return to earth-A.

They were walking back to Tom-B's home to meet the others and use their travel chamber, when a young couple approached them.

"I just bought my copy of Wyndham's Quest," said the man, holding up a book, "Could you autograph it for me 'to Dudley'."

"Is Geraldine going to play Mrs Wyndham, when it's adapted?" asked the woman.

"I don't know. Will you both excuse me a minute?" said Colin-A, and took Tracy aside to whisper in her ear, "Thank goodness his books never had a picture of Ottilie, or those two would have spotted you. Now they think I'm the author."

"Just sign it. It'll save us a lot of trouble," said Tracy.

Colin-A took the book, quickly speed read the synopsis on the fly leaf, and then signed on the blank page beside it.

Dudley thanked him, and walked away with his girlfriend.

"We've got to get a copy of that before we go," said Colin-A, and noticed a bookshop from which Dudley had most likely come.

They purchased the book and then took it back to earth-A in the travel chamber with Sir Henry Larnstein-A, Tom Lewis-A and Jennifer.

The following night, he put the book down, feeling somewhat less than pleased.

"The hide of the man. He wrote the whole story of our swapping universes and everything that happened, fictionalized it as one of his plays, just changed the name from Colin Trafford to that character he called Wyndham," said Colin-A, "It looks like Sir Henry-B and Tom-B have left our world, but they might return to a public scenario in their world."

"Nobody will suspect it's anything more than a great science fiction," said Tracy.

"His first," said Colin, "I looked through his other books while I was mistaken for him the first time I was there. He never wrote any science fiction before. I suspose he cured his writer's block by telling our story. At least he made the Wyndham based on him a school teacher instead of an author. The one based on me was still a scientist in the story he wrote."

"He probably felt he had to get something out of meeting you, other than a brief encounter with that shelter's wall," said Tracy, "If I hadn't pulled your wig and beard off, he might never have noticed you, but he'd certainly have noticed me."

"But never the way I do," said Colin.


End file.
